The footer!

Things are heating up in Alabama. I mean literally. It's a feels like temp of 115 most days, and i'm sure down in the pit it feels worse without any air flow. Then again the dirt itself should be somewhat cooling. All I know is that it makes me happy that I'm not the one in the hole digging and scraping and prepping the footer. It looks great. Yesterday they laid the rebar (Sorry no pics of this) and today the concrete trucks are scheduled in to pour 16" of concrete that will become our basement floor, the footer and the pads for the foundation columns that will support the floor of the house.

You can see the general layout in the picture to the left. The bedroom/bathroom of the master is the closest to you, then the area that will become the living room/kitchen/dining room and finally the third section that will be  the mudroom and bathroom.

The picture to the right shows how at the front of the house the area that is the living will extend beyond the bedrooms creating a nice area for the windows that will be the focal point of the front of the house.

Today the trailer is gone out of the pit and all the tools have been picked up. The only thing that remains is the form for the concrete. Well, that and some rebar to reinforce the concrete in the footer paths.

Meanwhile, summer vacation is more than half way over. I've kept my promise and the girls are finally learning to sew using my machine. It makes me nervous, but proud. So far we are keeping it to simple zig-zag stitches in a straight line, but today I hear rumors that they will be making the new pup a toy. THAT should be interesting. He's a really strong chewer so it's likely that the toy won't make it more than 10 minutes, but here's hoping!

Awww, just look at my little homemaker there. Now, if I can just teach her to clena up after herself and do MY laundry we'll have something going! She has also been helping to cook here and there by stirring the ground meat as it cooks, getting pots of water when I need them and measuring things. Had either of them been born as a singleton this would have taken place a long time ago but with 2 in the kitchen at the same time and only 1 me to supervise I decided that waiting to nurture that particular skill would benefit all of us with less accidents and Momma not getting as grumpy when things do go wrong. So far it seems my instinct was right on with that because even last year if there was a big mess in the kitchen I would have been much more vocal and anxious about it. Now they are big enough that they can clean up 90% of their messes and they are much better at taking turns doing the small tasks I assign them.

*SIGH* Growing up too fast! Now- can we get the pup to grow up faster? The mouthing and nipping and chewing on us is making life more than interesting. He did make it through the night again last night without an accident so there is that! Itty bitty baby (puppy?) steps.

See you soon!

Barbie~